The Gonzales family of Uvalde, Texas, has struck trucking gold -- a three-generation run of truck drivers pursuing, with some success, the American dream of entrepreneurship and freedom on the road. At the heart of it all, a shimmering, golden Peterbilt 359 and, like in many trucking families, a mother holding it all together.
Ralph Gonzales, now 64, got pulled out of school by his truck-driving father in sixth grade. His son, Rafael, completed school, but never wandered far from trucking. Now the pair operate a small fleet, just the two of them, with Rafael in "Goldie," the now 2024 Overdrive's Pride & Polish Antique-category winning 1984 Peterbilt 359, and his father in a 1995 379. Together, they haul mostly flatbed, sometimes reefer or hopper bottom, with the elder Gonzales staying within Texas much of the time as the younger ventures west and all around the country.
Though Rafael is one of four children, "I'm the only one that's got trucking in my blood," he said, and he's got the resume to prove it. Getting his CDL just about as soon as he could in 2011, the 32-year-old considers himself lucky.
"I was destined for this," he said. "I was spoiled" having an owner-operator in the family. "I had it made, I just gotta keep it going."
Part of the family legacy, aside from the inevitable trucking knowhow his father passed down, is the 359 itself, which the elder Gonzales bought in the late 1990s. Back then, Rafael was at single-digit age. He grew up with "Goldie" much like he grew up with trucking.
"This truck was bought by my dad in the late '90s and worked until 2003, when it was parked and taken apart and sat in pieces until 2015," he said. "My dad and I worked on it for 3 months straight to get it to its current form. A [Caterpillar] 3406B sits in place of the original 3406A. Turbo, fuel pump and timing modifications were done to achieve 550-600 horsepower."
Rafael said he did much of the "heavier, more extensive" work on the truck, "as far as fabricating goes." There's now a "water methanol" compound turbo, which ejects a mix of water and methanol into the air intake to raise the octane of the diesel.
"I kind of rigged up my own water methanol injection system," he said. With a pre-1999 engine, Gonzales runs paper logs in the truck. But while others fill up on diesel and DEF, Gonzales fills up on diesel and "boost juice," the water/methanol combination he says is "just like windshield washer fluid" minus the blue colorant and a few other ingredients.
"It cools down the air intake temperatures," said Gonzales. "Especially on those older, mechanical engines, it's harder to control the fuel intake so they tend to run hotter cylinder temperatures, so it just helps cool down those temperatures."
Other engine work includes Gonzales building "another delivery pump for it with bigger cam, bigger plungers and springs and barrels," as well as oversize fuel lines to the fuel nozzles and an aftermarket lift pump. Soon, he hopes to add a bigger injection pump to complete the build.
"I knew I wanted to put some horsepower to it," he said. "We haul in a lot of Western mountain states, so we pull the hills a lot and we've always been about climbing the mountains at a nice, safe and steady pace."
With the 3.55 gear ratio, Gonzales said Goldie does just that.
The transmission in the unit is an Eaton Fuller 18913a, with Rockwell SQ100 rears.
The extensive engine work speaks to Goldie's true character: She works. The Gonzales family does not fall victim to "original-itis," or the perhaps misplaced instinct of many old-truck lovers and restorers to run "period correct" equipment, Gonzales said. Since he actually works and sleeps in the truck, he brought it up to date with some creature comforts.
"We like the old-school stuff, but realistically we want to drive them, so we have to be comfortable," he said. "The way these trucks came, they rode on bushings."
Gonzales put the cab and sleeper on air ride and stretched the frame out to 305 inches, which "helps out the ride tremendously," he said.
The interior, "completely original as far as the upholstery" with the "buckskin-leather tan color" has one major modification to increase comfort, Gonzales notes. "A lot of people these days don’t like how I put a big hole in, and the cab and sleeper on air ride. They say it takes away the orginality," but who cares what people say?
Gonzales said he drove without air ride for a while and "started feeling it," even at his young age. In the end, what makes sense is a balance of originality and modernity. "I do my best to keep [his and his father's] trucks somewhat modern, but also pretty comfortable for us."
The interior is shown here from the passenger side.
That's how it goes for the Gonzales family -- real trucking pride, polish, hardworking original iron but with the comforts and class of a family with knowhow and experience behind it. A lot of that comfort comes from Rafael's mom and Ralph's wife Gloribella, the matriarch of the Gonzales family. Raising four kids with her husband on the road couldn't have been easy. One couldn't blame her if she never wanted to so much as look at a truck again, but she's not like that.
"The whole reason we fixed that truck back up in 2015 was my mom getting breast cancer," said Rafael. The truck's pieces had just been collecting dust in the yard, with no immediate plans for repair.
"We didn’t know how that was going to work out" he added, his thoughts equally applying to both his mom's diagnosis and the ground-up rebuild. "Any time you hear cancer, you don't know which way it's going to go.
"She was telling my dad and telling me that she doesn’t wanna die and not see that truck running again. She held down the house while he was working ... For my dad, that was his motivation" to get the truck up and running again, so she could see it rolling and hear that diesel turn over, and maybe feel the pride of her boys making something right again.
She's OK now, free from any immediate cancer concerns, Rafael said. "Thank god she went through all the radiation and operations, and she made it through and fought it off and all good." She kept trucking in her own way. "She's a fighter, that woman. She did not complain, didn't pout, was just a fighter the entire time."
Aside from a dropped valve in 2016, Goldie hasn't missed a step since then, either. The Gonzaleses still hope to get around to showing the 359 around the country, but for now there's plenty of pride and glory, whether just sitting at home or climbing those mountains out West.
[Related: Best of the best: 2024 Pride & Polish champs revealed]
